1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and an image forming method.
2. Related Art
A printing apparatus that performs recording by ejecting a liquid from nozzles and landing ink drops (dots) on a medium is common. With such a printing apparatus, printing may be performed using metallic ink that includes metallic particles such as aluminum microparticles as a pigment other than general color ink (for example, each color ink of KCMY).
With metallic printing using metallic ink, since the balance between the metallic luster and the color tone of the printed matter changes according to the amount of metallic particles that are included in the metallic ink, it was difficult to realize metallic printing with a favorable metallic luster at the desired color tone.
On the other hand, in a case when metallic printing is performed using metallic ink that includes aluminum powder as the metallic particles, there is a method of performing printing so that the shape of the metallic image becomes substantially mesh-like. Furthermore, a printing method of performing an adjustment of the metallic luster by controlling the amount of the aluminum powder that is included in the printed matter (image) by changing the size of the mesh has been proposed (for example, JP-A-11-78204).
According to the printing method of JP-A-11-78204, it is possible to print a metallic image with a high image quality and a favorable metallic luster. However, with such a method, even if it is possible to adjust the metallic luster by changing the size of the mesh, it was not possible to adjust the gradations of the metallic image. For example, nothing is disclosed with regard to a method of changing the shading of portions of the metallic image or expressing gradations by a metallic color.
In such a manner, with the metallic printing of the related art, while it was possible to print an image with a metallic luster for certain gradations, it was not possible to freely change the gradation values of the metallic image while having a favorable metallic luster at the same time, and it was difficult to print a variety of images according to the tastes of users.